## Chapter 320 – The Monarch of Monsters (22)
Vivian opened her eyes at once, feeling a flash of white light before her. Gasping for breath, she instinctively looked around.
She was still in the newborn Enic’s lair within the secret passage, though she didn’t know how much time had passed.
‘What… what did I see…?’
And there was Greta, squatting and tilting her head, observing Vivian as if she were studying her.
Vivian had been agonizing over what to say to the girl before her, whose shocking identity she now knew. Should she just run away? Or even kill herself?
But the girl didn’t seem interested in what happened to Vivian.
“D… Dragon…”
“Saurah.”
“Sau… rah…”
Even though she seemed to be wandering around aimlessly, Greta seemed to have her own set of rules.
She seemed to know something, but perhaps because she was still a child, she couldn’t express it properly.
Therefore, her actions were focused on learning what she didn’t know.
‘Is she… observing humans…?’
The several eggs that Saint Flansina had taken with her on the day she disappeared.
The beings born from those eggs were certainly not ordinary.
But the problem was, Vivian couldn’t tell if the girl before her was one of those ‘born from the egg’ beings, or something beneath them.
Vivian, with her quick mind, concluded that if Greta was one of the ‘born from the egg’ beings, she might show extreme hatred and aggression towards the humans who killed her parents.
If she was something beneath that, the hatred might be diluted, and she might show the same indifferent attitude as now.
“You’re… a Dr… I mean…
Saurah… is that right…?”
“Could you… maybe stop that thing outside?
Is that flesh… a piece of your body…?
A being that moves magic… you could probably stop it…”
“No. Humans die.
Humans. Kill Saurah.
I hurt too. Humans. Attacked.”
Vivian suppressed the chilling feeling she got from Greta’s surprisingly clear sense of friend and foe.
The fact that the dragon was here meant one thing.
Unless it had been here from the beginning, passing through the monster barrier like Enic, it must have come here recently.
But as long as Undenbrah was there, there was no way a dragon could enter here in a normal way.
Perhaps when Undenbrah tore her body apart, it must have been accompanied by considerable pain.
Vivian didn’t know what Greta’s current girl’s body was, but knowing that the opponent in front of her was a dragon, that wasn’t important right now.
Greta, who recognized humans as enemies, didn’t seem to have any intention of helping them until all the humans were dead.
“Then what about your mother…?”
“None. Cave. Live alone.”
“Then… how did you get here…?”
“Memory. Remember when close eyes.
Wind. Scenery. Sound. Story.”
“Story…?”
“Flansina. Sad.
Hate humans. Hate herself too.
Leave. To nowhere.”
Greta listed several abstract words.
Recalling the story in her head, whether it was a dream or a hallucination, Vivian was convinced that what she had seen was not just a figment of her imagination.
“You…”
She didn’t know the circumstances, the purpose, or how it was possible, but the opponent was a little dragon who had returned here, inheriting Flansina’s memories.
And the dragon was now hostile to humans. A small tremor ran through Vivian’s body as she realized this.
“If it’s not human…
You wouldn’t… care, would you…?”
“……?”
.
.
.
“Queen… the Queen has returned, nyaa…!!”
“Greta…!! You were with the Queen!! Come here!!”
“Vivian-niimm…!!
I thought something bad happened to you, oooh…!!”
Vivian pushed Greta into the arms of the Henias,
and walked through the fourth basement level of the lair with the Henias following her and Laniere clinging to her like a cicada.
“It’s here too…”
Vivian muttered, glancing at the corpses of several monsters scattered around the passage leading to the fourth basement level of the lair.
A report from a Henia bowing her head told Vivian about the current state of the lair.
“Yes… it seems that some of the monsters that leaked out found this place.
The Master is destroying the surrounding tunnels one by one now…
But the Queen hasn’t come in yet…”
“That’s right! Move it, move it!!
Verdi was worried!!”
“What are you talking about, Serkov!!
I’m fine, so be quiet!!
We’re being taken care of right now!!”
“Okay… okay, Verdi…
Anyway, for now, we’re blocking all the monsters.
Until all the tunnels are destroyed, we won’t let anyone in.”
Vivian nodded, watching Serkov, who had his sword on his shoulder, acting arrogant, and Verdi, who was glaring at him with her eyes narrowed like a prospective wife.
“That’s reassuring.
Then keep guarding well in the meantime.
And don’t take your eyes off the children.”
“Yes…!! I understand!!”
And in the distance, the Henias who had broken through Nemea and were injured were lying on the floor, rolling around.
Finding Yui seemingly treating them, Vivian quietly turned her feet towards another place so that Yui could concentrate.
On the opposite side of the fourth floor where they were, the figures of humans filling the prison cells could be seen.
These were the human prostitutes who worked at Floras, and some of their families who didn’t have the strength to fight.
In most cases, the men had died fighting to protect their families, and the old people had volunteered as bait because they couldn’t escape, leaving only young children at best.
“Hic… huu…”
The prostitutes and their children were huddled in the prison cells, embraced in their mothers’ arms, relieved by the guaranteed immediate safety.
For the most part, the mothers, who had experience with Enic’s mental education, had been trained to keep secrets at the risk of their lives, and were gently reassuring their children who were uneasy in the unfamiliar environment.
“It’s okay, baby?
Mommy’s here with you?
It’s not scary at all. Is it?”
“If you cry and laugh, you might grow hair?
Ah!! You laughed? Is it growing like that?”
“Hicc… uuu…
Hehet… Ehehet…!!”
That’s because they knew what kind of reward they would get when they listened well, as they had been trained with only pleasure.
They straddled the line between maternal love and being a rutting female, and at least for this moment, they were showing a little more maternal love.
Well, thanks to the atmosphere in the prison cells, which had changed from 19+ to all ages, or because of it.
Laratina, who would normally have been sentenced to life in prison and had her brain soaked in pleasure without a moment’s rest while sitting on the tentacle sofa.
For some reason, she was maintaining her sanity today, wearing a decent outfit made of Nemea, and sitting awkwardly among those people, looking uncomfortable.
The lair was now quite crowded.
There was only one reason why Greta was brought here.
Humans could no longer withstand any more attacks.
It would be fine if Greta didn’t want to help humans anyway.
If she went out and wreaked havoc with the power of the dragon, that would be the undeniable prelude to the end.
She thought it would be better to entrust her to Enic, a monster who was treated better than humans in Greta’s mind.
‘She’s just a child who doesn’t know what she’s thinking anyway.
It’s enough to divert her attention.’
“Laniere. We have to go back soon.
Staying away for too long will raise suspicion.
Has Aurora returned?”
“Yes…!! While we were doing the request experience, right?
Something happened as soon as she got to work after class.
She couldn’t go anywhere, so the other kids rescued her…!!”
“Thanks to you, I saved my humble life, Vivian-nim.
If you’re going back to the academy…
You’ll probably go through the women’s restroom in the magic building?”
Aurora, who appeared quietly from the side, slightly lifted her skirt and gave a word of thanks.
Fortunately,
“Yeah. Before that, I need to talk to him.
I have so much to talk about…
Tell them to prepare for internal defense thoroughly.”
Forcing the many thoughts that came into her head because of her complicated mind to the back, Vivian left the others behind and entered the Queen’s Chamber alone.
Perhaps because she had experienced so many things today.
For no reason, the swaying bed woven from tree roots, which she had always slept comfortably in, seemed to show a sense of non-everyday incongruity.
And as if she had known from the beginning that she had set foot in this place, a thick strand of tentacle slid down gently from the ceiling, welcoming her back.
“I’m here… but…
I think I have to go back soon…”
[What’s going on outside?]
Vivian forced a faint smile and tried to gloss over her words, as the tentacle wrote on the wall with sap as if it were ink.
“It’s a bit of a long story…
Monsters are pouring out of a dungeon that suddenly appeared.
But that’s… I can’t believe it either…”
Vivian, who was taking out unbelievable facts, and the tentacle, which was quietly listening to it while wriggling.
And when she finished speaking, Vivian shook her head, watching the tentacle finally start writing on the wall again.
[Is there anything I can do to help?]
“I’m really happy to hear that… but no.
We can handle it ourselves anyway.”
‘Because you’ll be in danger if you do……’
The dungeon created by the fragments of Greta’s body.
And the huge gate that couldn’t be sealed, causing monsters to pour out.
Frankly, Vivian herself didn’t know what Enic could do against so many enemies.
Rather, by revealing its existence, a future in which Enic would be closer to being subjugated might be waiting.
The only thing she had to think about now was one thing.
Without humans, Enic couldn’t live either.
So, she had to somehow stop this situation.
Her sword, which she hadn’t had time to properly wipe the blood off of until just now, so it had dried as it was.
Vivian struggled to pull it out of its scabbard, and as the tentacle rubbed against the sword to melt the hardened blood, she wiped it clean with a rough cloth.
Words were not exchanged between them, but they both felt a strange warmth from the tentacle that was gently draped over her shoulder.
Finally, she felt the slipperiness of the sword as she took care of it together.
After finishing the maintenance, she felt the sword gently slide back into its scabbard, and Vivian gently tilted her head and rubbed her face against the tentacle.
“Aang…!!”
And at the action of the tentacle playfully licking the tip of her nose, Vivian burst into a happy laugh, like a girl of her age.
“I want to… come back soon…”
And behind the two of them, who were leaning against the tentacle with their eyes closed, with a quiet whisper.
The lazy morning sunlight slowly shone, and the short time for the two of them passed by like that.
“Because I want to laze around like this again…
Just the two of us…”
